


A Chronicle of Loss

by spencers-renaissance (tomlinsoul)



Category: Criminal Minds (US TV)
Genre: 5 Things, Abandonment, Abandonment Issues, Allusions to Revelations, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Autistic Spencer Reid, Depression, Didn't Know They Were Dating, Drug Addiction, First Kiss, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, Getting Together, Grief, Hurt/Comfort, Insecure Spencer Reid, Insecurity, Loss, Low Self-Esteem, M/M, Protective Derek Morgan, Romance, Self-Harm
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-10
Updated: 2021-01-10
Packaged: 2021-03-11 04:28:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,635
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28009215
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tomlinsoul/pseuds/spencers-renaissance
Summary: Even Penelope, arguably the most emotive member of the BAU, seems back on her feet within a few days but Spencer still feels as though he’s been hollowed out and all his insides replaced with the smouldering ashes of grief filling him up, weighing heavy in his stomach, climbing up his throat and choking him.or; 5 people Spencer Reid lost and 1 person he gained.
Relationships: Derek Morgan/Spencer Reid
Comments: 20
Kudos: 158





	1. The Inescapable Unravelling

**Author's Note:**

> I worked on this fic for a long time and I'm really damn proud of it, so I hope you enjoy this angsty mess borne from my anger at Spencer Reid's traumas!
> 
> Trigger Warning: serious depression, grief/loss, graphic self-harm imagery, anxiety

**_1\. William_ **

Spencer’s only ten years old when he watches his father pack his bags in his parents’ bedroom, watches as he smiles sadly at the sorry sight of him and his mother begging him not to leave, only to ignore their pleas and walk out the door. He remembers the anxiety written on his mother’s face, the shame in her eyes at being left in such a cruel way, the uncertainty as to whether they’d cope without William like it’s branded onto his skin, an egregious mark he can’t ignore. 

Just like that, he became the man of the house. He became the voice of reason, the sensible one, the person dealing with Diana’s episodes, all while balancing his school work in a desperate attempt to live a different life to the one he existed in as a child. 

He knows it wasn’t solely Diana, or Riley Jenkins, or any average marital issue that caused him to leave, he knows it was partly that William simply didn’t know how to handle an autistic child prodigy. He had a genius son who struggled with communication, had no friends, and refused to engage in any of the bonding activities he came up with. In the end, Spencer being  _ different _ only compounded his desire to leave and, eventually, he stopped suppressing it and gave in.

He’d never blame his mother, but her confusion in her episodes often sent him flying down half a flight of steps or clutching a stinging cheek or banging his head on a door frame. She called him clumsy and he didn’t correct her. She called him ‘crash’ and he accepted the nickname. Without William there, he was completely and utterly alone, left to deal with the grief of losing a father and a schizophrenic mother who struggled to look after herself, let alone him. 

He still thinks about it all these years later. He thinks about what his father said to Diana when he left: “you refuse to take care of yourself.” He reflects on the fact that he was well aware Diana wouldn’t be able to take care of him, that he would be left to fend for himself, that a 10 year old can’t provide adequate mental health support no matter how hard he tries, and he still left. He thinks about what that meant, how little his father actually cared for him. 

He still thinks about it, and he still cries. His first encounter with grief, and he was only 10 years old. 

**_2\. Innocence_ **

Spencer had joined the BAU at 22: three PhDs under his belt and a lifetime of expectation on his shoulders, but somehow he’d managed to remain the most innocent member of the team throughout the first few years of his job. Until Tobias Hankel had taken it and completely obliterated any shreds of naivete he had left. 

Of course, he knew evil. He’d even experienced it first-hand, he’d been viciously bullied growing up and he’d encountered his fair share of violent, deranged serial killers, but Tobias -- or, more accurately, Charles and Raphael -- introduced him to evil on a completely new scale. The pain and fear that had tormented him in that cabin lived in a secluded, festering part of his psyche, reproducing at a terrifying rate in his memory, never resting, never quieting, unless dilaudid was streaming through his veins. 

His innocence was gone; there was only darkness, loneliness, corruption, and he was grieving for something he’d never get back. His life was now separated into two distinctly different eras, marked only by his kidnapping, by the cruel torture he’d been subjected to. 

Along with his innocence, he’d lost his relationships, he’d lost the family he’d found and loved so dearly. Nobody tried to help him escape the clutches of his PTSD or addiction, he felt like he was drowning right in front of his friends while they talked and laughed among themselves, muffling his desperate cries for help, and the frustration and abandonment joined the pain and fear in their festering corner of his mind. 

He eventually gets clean, he eventually recovers. But he’s never the same. He’s forever tainted by the actions of one man -- a man he struggled to blame -- and he can’t help but mourn the life he had before Tobias, the optimistic, brightly coloured world-view he used to hold before it was ripped up, stamped on, and burned to ashes right before his eyes. 

**_3\. Gideon_ **

Gideon leaves. Gideon leaves and the blow is almost as crushing as it was when he was ten. His mentor, his father figure, his  _ friend _ abandons him with no warning, no goodbye. It hurts that he didn’t think Spencer worthy of anything more than a useless fucking letter that he left for him in a cabin because he  _ knew _ that Spencer loved him enough to drive out there and find it; he knew that Gideon was much more special to Spencer than he ever was to him.

This pain feels almost worse because he’s surrounded by people feeling the same way, if to a less extreme extent. He finds himself comparing himself to Hotch, Derek, the whole team: it makes him feel as though he’s overreacting when even Penelope, arguably the most emotive member of the BAU, seems back on her feet within a few days and Spencer still feels as though he’s been hollowed out and all his insides replaced with the smouldering ashes of grief filling him up, weighing heavy in his stomach, climbing up his throat and choking him. 

He drags his feet, he doesn’t sleep, he drinks coffee, he runs on auto-pilot. Others notice, of course they do, but there’s nothing any of them can say to make it better, not even Hotch when he’s pulled into his office and sternly told that he needs to open up. Spencer just looks at him with empty, exhausted eyes and shrugs. Weeks ago, he would’ve cried but there aren’t anymore tears to cry, he’s reached a truce with himself. He isn’t happy but he isn’t crushingly depressed anymore: he feels nothing, an abyss of grey matter circling around inside him as he struggles to perform basic functions. 

“It’ll get better, kid,” Derek says seriously one day when he sits down at his desk, dullness settled deep in his eyes and numbness deep in his veins. It doesn’t feel like it. 

Rossi joins the team and he’s nothing but cold towards Spencer and the rejection only adds insult to injury, and nobody seems to care. His stomach hurts all the time and he’s losing weight again, he knows, but he can’t seem to put any effort into anything at all, least of all trying to be happy, trying to look after himself. 

He’s lost his protector and he’s replaced by another person who sees him as an intentional but irritating robot to be used and discarded, not thought of again until another geographical profile is required, or an obscure fact would help the investigation. The agony of existence for almost a year after Gideon’s disappearance feels almost too much to bear, even if Rossi does warm up to him, even if he does eventually begin to heal and forgive. It’s the first time grief almost kills him, and he isn’t even mourning the dead. 

**_4\. Emily_ **

Emily’s death tears him apart. For the first time since the year after Hankel, he considers many things. He buys dilaudid and fiddles with the bottle every evening, torn between the sweet relief he knows would be guaranteed the second it’s flooding his bloodstream and the torment of knowing it was Emily who helped him get clean the first time, how disappointed she’d be if she knew he was throwing away all those hours she put in, disregarding the belief she had in him. 

He holds a razor over the top of his thighs and slashes as deep as he can bear, daydreams about burying the blade deep enough to slice open his femoral artery and give up, embrace the darkness that’s been living inside him for years anyway. But he can’t stand the grief it would bring JJ, losing another sibling to suicide, even if he isn’t blood related. He doesn’t want to hurt anyone but himself, but it’s so cripplingly tempting and the frustration at not being able to give in to any of his darker fantasies has him tearing his heart out. 

Instead he cries, sobs, weeps, over the death of his best friend, shouts in anger at the unfairness of Emily’s life being taken by a dirty criminal while he gets to live as she’s six feet under, dark and cold in the ground. Images of her beautiful face he loved so much rotting away, turning into something grotesque and mangled roam around in his brain and he berates himself relentlessly for not appreciating her wide grin and teasing eyes more, hates himself for not appreciating every single moment with her that he could. 

And when she miraculously rises from the dead, he can’t even appreciate it because he feels as though he’s lost another friend. JJ, the one person he tried every day to live for, pictured in his mind every time he considered ending everything, had deceived him, had held him while he cried, held a cool washcloth to his forehead after he threw up from the force of his crying and the extremity of his grief, had watched him writhe in agony, all while having the power to stop it and doing nothing. 

The betrayal dizzies him: he doesn’t know who he can trust and the shock of Emily’s return leaves him reeling. He’s cold to the people he loves, and he can’t rejoice in Emily’s return, can’t sit down with her and chat like they used to, or hug her again, or joke with her, or prank Derek together. Again, he’s drowning and this time everyone’s focus is on him but he’s refusing their hands reaching out to help, stubbornly accepting his fate, too scared to take an outstretched arm in case it lets him go again. Surely the cold darkness of the cruel waters is kinder than another rejection or deception?

Finally,  _ finally,  _ he decides to trust one hand and he’s pulled above the waters again, not quite out of the ocean but at least he can breathe. Eventually, he finds the strength to walk to shore and he’s wrapped up in Emily’s strong arms, burying his face in her hair and swearing he’ll never let go again. 

**_5\. Alex_ **

He never, not for a moment, blames Alex for her decision to let go. If anything he admires her for it, he’s proud she made the right decision for her and her family, and at least he saw this one coming. He’s lost enough people by this point that the loss doesn’t ache and burn and fester in the way it used to, and they stay in contact; they have a bi-weekly FaceTime call and she texts him memes that he doesn’t understand and book recommendations regularly. 

But that’s not to say that losing his maternal figure on the team, the woman who he’d connected with the fastest out of any BAU member, who had understood him in a way no-one else could, who loved and cared for him like a son, doesn’t stab him in the gut. 

He’d take a bullet for absolutely everyone on the team, but he hadn’t taken a bullet for Alex out of some misguided loyalty to a coworker or because she was a member of the BAU, he’d taken a bullet for her because she was the best person he knew, and - plain and simple - some inner, more primal instinct within him wanted to save her life. And she’d stayed with him at the hospital, a little due to her guilt, a little due to her seeing Ethan in him, but mostly because she loved him. 

And he loved her. So seeing her walk down those stairs and knowing she wouldn’t walk into the bullpen the next morning - no matter how much he knew that this was the right thing for her to do - left him feeling hollow again, a little broken, a lot sore. He missed her deeply, both because she was an amazing asset to the team, but also because she’s a beautiful person who brought sunshine to his gloomy world. She had an indescribable talent for making him  _ happy _ , and he felt her absence in his every-day life bitterly.

Although she’s still around, she still finds ways to brighten his day, still has some creepy telepathic ability to know when he’s down and exactly how to make him feel better, it’s another loss to add to the many he’s somehow managed to have collected over the years. And he can’t seem to tell the grief in his heart any different. 

At least this time it can be temporarily alleviated by a text message. It’s more than he could have asked for, really. 


	2. The Gradual Intertwining

**_+1. Derek_ **

He falls in love with Derek like the kind of slow and steady drizzle that’s almost indistinguishable from heavy mist; so easily confused for the ordinary, familiar platonic feelings he’s harboured for years. It’s because of this that he doesn’t put up an umbrella, he continues walking as he’s gradually soaked in deep, entrenched yearning, until one day, he finally realises it’s raining. 

It’s on the morning of Rossi’s 60th birthday party that it finally clicks and, suddenly, it’s obvious. He let Derek carry him to bed last night after he fell asleep watching a movie, for God’s sake: he’d even woken up on the way but faked it just so he wouldn’t put him down. He’s known for years that a 187 IQ doesn’t mean his emotional intelligence is excellent, too, but this feels ridiculous even for him. He’s practically been in a relationship for years and he had no idea. This must be why he always got that strange feeling in his stomach when Derek talked about literally anybody else.

This is not an ideal realisation to come to when Derek is currently cuddled around him, about to wake up any minute. Spencer tries very hard not to think about the fact that he won’t blink an eye at their entwined limbs and what that means, but he’s not exactly in control of his thoughts right now. 

He feels like he sleepwalks through the morning, trying to pay attention to what Derek talks to him about as he cooks him breakfast, but his mind has sort of short-circuited, not knowing how to adapt to this new information. His brain is not equipped to process  _ being in love, _ and zoning out is as good a coping mechanism as any for now. It’s not until they head back to the bedroom to get dressed and ready for the day that he snaps out of it.

“Hey, pretty boy,” Derek says loudly, clicking his fingers in front of Spencer’s face to get his attention. 

“Hm?” Spencer hums, feeling the world fade back into focus despite the haze of confusion still dizzying him somewhat. 

“Alright, you’ve been spacy with me all morning,” Derek says, shifting his weight slightly as he levels Spencer with an inquisitive gaze. He can’t help but feel a cool kind of dread pour down his spine at the idea of that look figuring him out. “What’s going on?”

“Nothing, sorry,” Spencer says, forcing himself to snap back into action as he attempts to compartmentalise. “Just… didn’t sleep well, I guess.”

Derek looks doubtful but takes him at his word. “Okay,” he acquiesces. “Better get dressed, though. We’ve got a lot to get through today.”

“We do?” Spencer asks, ignoring the fact that he’s still stood in his ratty, oversized shirt and underwear in front of the man he’s deeply in love with, maybe for the sake of his sanity, maybe because he finds it hard to be embarrassed in front of  _ Derek Morgan, _ not after all these years. 

“Yeah,” Derek says, like it’s obvious, “we gotta run to the grocery store and pick up a present for Rossi - probably some food for this barebones apartment of yours, too - pick up my clothes from the dry cleaners, and swing round Penelope’s to give her the blender I borrowed back. And I know for a fact you have some work to do on your latest paper, as well.”

Spencer, with his new perspective on the situation, considers the fact that Derek has included him in errands that are pretty exclusive to his own life. He also considers the fact that he never would have stopped to think this odd if he didn’t have the knowledge he has now. Unfortunately, simply  _ considering  _ does not shed much light on the situation. 

Because of this, Spencer does what he’s always done. He nods and gets ready for his day of driving around with Derek doing very mundane chores and wonders why he feels so excited. 

(While they’re out and about, it strikes Spencer why the realisation that he’s in love with Derek feels so paralysing: almost everyone he’s ever loved has left. He’s 34 and he’s never had a loving, committed relationship, and that’s for a reason: there’s only so much grief one heart can take. How could he ever give himself over to someone, hand them the key to his heart, open the door into his life, knowing that they could leave? Forever simply doesn’t exist, not for Spencer anyway. And truly, he doesn’t think he’d survive the loss of Derek, he can’t think of anything in the world that would be more painful.)

Despite the emotional exertion of the day, Rossi’s party is actually fairly enjoyable, probably aided by the glass of wine Spencer had accepted immediately upon entering the garden, he bloody well deserved it after the day he’s had. He gets chatting with JJ and Hotch and he barely even notices the absence of Derek by his side, having been roped into a conversation with Rossi and one of his famous poker friends that Spencer wouldn’t be able to place with a gun to his head. 

It’s not long before they reconvene though, programmed with some kind of homing instinct that always leads them back to one another, and Derek’s leaning a bit too close. Spencer finds it a little hard to breathe with his body pressed so close to his own, Derek’s warm, wine flavoured breath on his ear making his insides flip and setting butterflies free to roam his stomach. 

They spend the rest of the party like that, pressed away together in a corner, tucked inside one another’s pockets, and Spencer knows that he’s responsible for at least half of the instigation: he’s pressing back against Derek’s side with just as much pressure, leaning in closer, laughing a little louder, not bothering to hide the adoration that must be plainly written across his face. 

“Wanna come back to mine for a drink?” Derek asks as the night draws to a close, and how can Spencer refuse? They spend more nights together than apart at this point, and the last thing he wants is to feel lonely tonight, not after today.

“Please,” is all he says.

No-one says anything when they leave together, Derek’s hand loosely placed on his lower back. 

Derek’s apartment is warm and tidy, the opposite of Spencer’s, but it feels just as much like home as his own when he steps over the threshold. He’s about to tell him just that, but as he turns around to face him, Derek’s looking at him in a way he’s never seen before and his breath catches.

“Spencer?”

“Yeah?” 

Derek steps a little closer, crowding into his space even more. “Can I kiss you?” he murmurs.

Spencer doesn’t bother answering, instead closing the gap on his own and pressing his lips to Derek’s. His hands go to Derek’s side on instinct but as he kisses back, Spencer feels one hand tangling itself gently in his hair, and another cupping his jaw and he gives way, melting into the touch. The whole thing goes right to his stomach, feeling it bottom out as the intensity of the moment threatens to overwhelm him before a small sound escapes Derek’s lips and he’s reminded who’s kissing him, whose hands are on him, who’s making him feel these things. All of a sudden, it’s easier to let go.

Their lips mould together as they collapse into one another, the final piece of the gradual intertwining of their lives and bodies over the last twelve years. A fire lights under Spencer and he feels his world tilt on its axis, except unlike previous life-altering experiences, this time it feels like its tilting into place, as though he’s been off-kilter this whole time, finally returned to his natural state. 

“You have no idea how long I’ve dreamed of this,” Derek whispers as they pull away.

“Why didn’t you kiss me sooner, then?” Spencer asks. 

“Today is the first day you knew you wanted it,” Derek replies, before he’s kissing him again. 

(Later that night, when they’re tucked into Derek’s bed, Spencer lies with his head on his chest, comforted by the steady, reassuring heartbeat as Derek whispers promises of forever into his hair. Spencer knows that nobody can ever really promise anything, but for the first time in his life, he decides it doesn’t matter. They’ll have to part some day, in one way or another - maybe Spencer will be the one to go first this time - but he realises that he’d rather have known Derek like this, to have known how it feels to love and be loved back, only to have him leave, than to have him stay and never know it at all.)

**Author's Note:**

> Kudos and comments are always appreciated and make me very happy, but honestly just so glad you're here!
> 
> This is the [rebloggable post](https://spencers-renaissance.tumblr.com/post/639949764992073728/a-chronicle-of-loss) and here is my tumblr, @[spencers-renaissance](https://spencers-renaissance.tumblr.com), if that's your jam :))


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